Well I figured it was time for a progress report for 2012 so here goes!

Since the birth of my son last Dec my time has been been full of sleepless nights and lots of diaper changing and very limited time at the shop and I have already missed the first race of the year.

Last season turned out to be both good and bad as the car went through some major changes including a new FF 6766 turbo set-up along with a fully built head……..it just so happened that I picked the worst time of the year to do the work as the shop was super busy and the fab work took a bit longer than expected.

The rest of the set-up has essentially stayed the same since late 2007 with the shortblock having lots of abuse from dyno pulls, street driving, and lots and lots of passes at the drag strip.

Mods:

- FFTEC 2.0L (Manley I beams / Wiseco non-hd 85.5mm 9:1)
- FFTEC built head (+.5mm valves / Cos M2 cams / KIGGLY springs & HLA)
- FFTEC SMIM w/ S90 TB
- FFTEC FF turbo kit with PTE 6766 turbo
- FFTEC 4” FMIC
- SPARKTECH Pro-cdi
- FIC fuel rail w/ 2150’s
- BR double pumper
- AEM V1
- QM twin (V1)
- SHEP TC
- FFTEC trans (Evo 8 3/4th gear)
- Wilwood small front brakes
- MT ET drags (26”)
- FFTEC NHRA cert’d 10 point cage

The best part of last season ironically on the day my son was born the car ran its quickest and fastest time to date but on a mediocre 60ft.

https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/dr...5-151-mph.html



Vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YcCONtv8CM

If you listen in the vid the car sounded like it was breaking up in 3rd and 4th gear.

That was Dec 11 2011………

Fast forward to a week ago and we finally had time to get the car back on the dyno to see what was up with the car and it immediately started to break up again on the dyno after idling around normally???

Go to pull the plugs and find this in the #4 cylinder 



Did a compression test and things didn’t look so good w/ little compression in the #4 cyl.

So yesterday I finally got a break from the wife and little guy and decided to do a leak down and again almost 80%leak down in that cyl while the other 3 showed very little.

So off came the head to see what lurked inside and here’s what it looked like!







Bummer to say the least but hey the motor did do it’s job for quite some time so now it’s time to upgrade.

Our machinist will be by to take a look at the damage so that I can come up with a plan of attack as I’m not sure if I can hone the bore and stuff some new pistons in it w/ some new rod bearings or if I should consider completely re-building with new rods and pistons……alum vs steel ……2.0L vs 2.3L……etc.

 

It hurts to see her go down but as always, when stuff breaks, UPGRADE!!!

 

Damng Patrick !!!

it could have been worse =(

hope u get the car back soon on the road again man

 

Sorry to hear Pat. I had the same issue on the 3rd motor last year. Cylider 3 spark plug electrode broke off causing 75 compression in that cylinder when i was on the dyno

Keep your head up bud, now time for a fresh new motor!

 

Damn that sucks bro. Looks all to similar!

 

YIKES. this sucks. i had the EXACT same thing happen at the track. the car started to brake up once i hit boost. so i went to put a new set of plugs in and i had #2 CYL spark plug electrode broken off. i ''may'' have got lucky though because i put a bore scope in that CYL and didnt notice anything. i did a comp test and had 140/145 in all CYL and a leak down was ok too. i hope i got lucky. i wont know for sure until it gets retuned.

Pat i know im no where near your town but if i can help im just a PM away

 

Pat, could u tell where the air was goin during the leakdown? I would pay close attention to the head when u take it apart.

 

Damn that's almost exactly the same comp in mine 70 psi

What plugs were you running then Joey?

And what are you thoughts of alum vs steel rods if it comes down to that?

Thanks a lot Dan i appreciate it and i will shoot ya a pm if i do need anything......got any pistons j/k

Ya you could clearly hear it coming out of the exhaust

In the crappy cell pics you can't really see it but there looks like a piece of got lodged between the valve and seat it's not horrendous and hopefully fixable.

Our machine shop has jumped on board as a sponsor and has been gracious enough to offer to take care of the machine work so hopefully they had a chance to look over the damage today if not next week and i will update the thread with what the verdict is.

I will break-down the head and send it off to them as well to thoroughly get checked over

 

Pat- I am running the BPR9ES. Thats what was in the car when that happened. That was not a fun night lol.

To be honest, I never ran Aluminum rods before. I have heard mixed reviews. A local buddy of mine had them in his car and had some issues and rebuilt his motor to steel rods. I prolly wont go to Aluminum rods. Im happy with my combo. Weisco HD1400s 10:5:1 Compression, Manley TT Alloy Rods. But i guess its preference also. Are u thinking of going high compression now or LR?

 

So what was the reason behind this? Just a faulty set of plugs?

 

how long you have those plugs in the car for?

 

What a bummer! Hope you can find a way to get it fixed up by seasons start.

 

Detonation/ too hot of plugs are typically the reasons.

 

I don't believe it was caused by detonation but more so too hot of a plug.

In my haste i damaged a set of Densos and threw in some bnib ngk's but they were a 7 heat range plug

We have reviewed the logs and afr's seemed in check and the car was running fine the pass before it.

The injectors had just been sent out cleaned/flowed by FIC (thanks Jens!) so don't think that was it.

I'm still waiting for our machinist to look over the damage to decide what i will do in regards to the shortblock.........

Not sure if i'd like to just build a shortblock on the side and do w/o the o-rings or not this time???

Also i'm still thinking of sticking with a 2.0L but with a bit more compression but a stroker motor has always been on my mind since back when this first motor was put together back in 2007!

I'm open to your thoughts and opinions......

 

its scary this sounds so commen, Joey a BPR9 is what a 2 deg colder plug then stock correct ? what causes the electrode to break off? is it simply from high boost/high cylinder pressures ? if it is indeed from detonation/too hot a plug as Ernie stated how cold of a plug is the absolute coldest you can run without effecting the amount of fuel being combusted. DO most people to play it safe swap plugs ever couple oil changes?